ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,276,153, issued on April 15, was assigned to Hettich-ONI GmbH & Co. KG (Vlotho, Germany).
"Multi-joint hinge" was invented by Mark Schneider (Porta Westfalica, Germany) and Ralf Tofall (Bueckeburg, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A multi-joint hinge has a mounting element which can be fixed to an appliance body and a hinge part which can be fixed to a door and which is held pivotably on the mounting element via a joint mechanism with a plurality of joint levers. The hinge part is biased in the closing direction via a spring and at least one linear damper with a damper housing and a piston rod displaceable relative to the damper hou...